July 16/12 16:12 pm - Team Ontario Report on Tour de la releve internationale de Rimouski - Part One

Posted by Editoress on 07/16/12

Team Ontario, packed the vans and journeyed off for the 15 hour trip to Rimouski, Quebec - drive to Quebec City and keep driving for another three hours. The team arrived and met up with the riders from Ottawa in the late afternoon on Tuesday, July 10th. The team checked in to the accommodations and unpacked the bikes and gear to get ready for the week of hard racing to come.

With the team bikes ready to roll, we headed out on a two hour training ride to loosen up the legs and pre-ride stages 2, 4, 5 and 7. The kids were super keen to get things rolling and, if you can believe it, we had 14 riders ready to ride ten minutes early; a very good sign of things to come.

Team Ontario had two Provincial teams (Bailin Xie, Claudia Newdick, Keltie Campbell and Sarah Mason) competing in the Cadet Girls division. On the Boy's side (Tyler Lee, Derek Gee, Connor Nevin, Connor Byway) were the for riders carrying the Red and White of Team Ontario. There was also a composite team of riders from Ottawa Bicycle Club, Forest City Velodrome, and Cycling BC, who were entered to experience a high level race and gain valuable experience to help their cycling careers into the future. Six staff were on hand to help coordinate logistics and plan race strategy for the seven stages of the tour.

There were many riders from Ontario represented in the race. Team CHCH had four teams entered in the event. Team Ontario had our two teams, with OBC-FCV fielding a composite team for the race. At least 20 Ontario riders were lined up for stage #1 .... very promising for the future of road racing in the Province.

How the races unfolded:

Stage #1: 68km road race. This point-to-point stage featured two Sprint and two Mountain preems during the event. In the opening kilometers of the stage in both the boys and girls races the peloton was shredded after about ten kilometres. The selection was made and many Ontario athletes were in the hunt after opening stage. Ontario's top performers were Jeremy Lacasse (OBC-FCV) with a third place finish, Bailin Xie 12th (Team Ontario Cadet) and Madeleine McConnell (Team CHCH Junior) 13th.

Stage #2: 9km Team Time Trial. A late afternoon rain started to fall just as the teams were arriving at the start of this flat and fast stage of the Tour. Everyone were in good spirits, as this was the first Team Time Trial for most of the teams in the event. The roads were wet for all the teams. The tailwind meant that the kids were just flying on the course. The top performing team during the event was the Cadet Junior Team from CHCH, as they blistered the course 16 seconds faster than any of the other teams.

Stage #3: 78km road race.Another point-to-point event with the boys and girls doing the same course and distance. One of the tougher races ever. This is the same course used in the 70's and 80's by the Pro's .... the kids looked like Pro's handling the 25 kilometres of climbing during the stage. There were some very tired legs after this stage. The top performers from Ontario, Madeleine McConnell (Team CHCH Junior) 13th, Bailin Xie (Team Ontario Cadet) 21st, Connor Nevin (Team Ontario Cadet) fourth place at the end of the stage (Connor also received the RED Jersey for most aggressive rider during the stage).

Stage #4: 6km Individual Time Trial. A nice warm morning for this short but decisive stage of the tour. This stage sorted out the general classification for the remainder of the race. Adam Jamieson (Team CHCH Cadet) backed up his podium at Junior Road Nationals a few weeks ago, with a killer time that put him in the GC lead that he would not give up. Adam would put four seconds into all of his competitors on this very short course; an outstanding performance. On the Women's side of things, Saskia Kowalchuk (Team CHCH Junior) finished a solid fourth on the stage, with Sarah Mason (Team Ontario Cadet) finishing fifth, just 11 seconds off the lead time.